


Call and Answer

by crzy_wrtr10



Category: MATCH: Innocent (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Gen, High School, Insecurity, Introspection, Peer Pressure, Some Fluff, There is a boatload of angst in this, With a capital A, mostly angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-05
Updated: 2014-12-05
Packaged: 2018-02-28 05:14:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2720000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crzy_wrtr10/pseuds/crzy_wrtr10
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>It didn’t work like that. High school didn’t work like that, and those words that he’d said to her didn’t mean anything. </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>He hadn’t meant them. Not for someone like her.</i>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Or: Allie can't get Danny's words out of her head, even when she knows they don't mean what they seem to mean. Except, maybe they do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Call and Answer

**Author's Note:**

> Hey. Look. I'm still breathing. 
> 
> I'm trying to claw my way back from one of those handy dandy writing slumps we all have occasionally. I'm trying. 
> 
> For those of you who might not know, MATCH is this cool web series found [on Colaborator](http://match.colaborator.com/season-1/). Check out the episodes, and also check out the cool interactive content that goes with them. What's awesome about Colaborator is that they really love viewer interaction, so there's the chance that if you write and post something to the forum, it could possibly become canon. (Which is really cool.) Check it out. Share it if you like it. 
> 
> Also, seriously, come poke and prod at me on tumblr. I'm over at [awonderingsagittarius](http://awonderingsagittarius.tumblr.com)
> 
> This hasn't seen a beta. Feel free to cackle at typos.

_It gets better._

Danny’s words circled endlessly around the inside of her mind, despite the rambling from the other side of the desk during her meeting. She’d tuned most of that out, but she couldn’t seem to do anything about the words. 

She was smart enough to know about social circles, cliques, about the inherent distance between herself and someone like Danny. Still, she couldn’t help but think, _maybe it will get better for us_. And somehow they had gone from an independent he and she to some sort of subconscious “we”. 

It didn’t work like that. High school didn’t work like that, and those words that he’d said to her didn’t mean anything. 

He hadn’t meant them. Not for someone like her.

_It gets better._

She remembered asking him how. 

_It gets better._

**How?**

_I don’t know. It just does. With help._

Allie mulled the words over and over in her brain, a vicious cycle much the like one she’d talked about earlier, while they were both waiting uncomfortably, almost playing a game of musical chairs while she pretended to read old parenting magazines. 

She was still thinking of the words when she finally went to bed that night. She lay awake, sheets pulled up to her neck and her hair fanned wildly across her pillows, and stared at the ceiling. For all her book smarts, for all that had led her to high school even before her first period, this was the thing she was stuck on. Stuck on some stupid boy and his stupid words – that he couldn’t possibly mean, not to her – so far outside of her normal orbit that it had thrown a wrench in everything.

_You, too?_

**It gets better.**

_How?_

He still couldn’t mean it.

* * *

His words left her – mostly – alone by the time she got to school the next morning. Allie slithered her way through the chaos of Eagle Heights High School’s main hallways while doing her best not to touch anyone more than she had to. It was a skill she’d worked hard to cultivate since middle school, and it usually served her well.

She made it to her locker with no mishaps. It would be a miracle of the rest of the day went the same. 

Of course, the locker stuck like it always did, and her history textbook nearly brained her on its way to the floor once the door was open. With it fluttered something else. She picked them both up, unceremoniously stuffing the book in with the others. The paper she was a little more delicate about, a little more secretive. 

After all, no one had ever left her a note in her locker before, even when she’d been among peers her own age. 

Allie read it once, almost in disbelief, and her head snapped up. It had to be a joke. He was watching her from somewhere, wasn’t he? He didn’t mean it, like he didn’t meant the words he’d said to her the day before. 

But there it was in front of her. A name and a phone number in untidy handwriting, right there in front of her. 

Danny’s name and phone number, and the line _If you want to talk_. 

It couldn’t be real. It was a joke. Someone had…someone had obviously seen the two of them yesterday having their…conversation, yes, that’s what it was, and thought…something. 

Still, she refolded it and tucked it away in the depths of her backpack where she knew it would be relatively safe. Then she told herself, like she’d been telling herself, to forget about it. Forget about him, and forget about his words, and his offer that probably wasn’t really an offer. Not for her. 

Because as much as she wanted to think they were bound together by this – this _thing_ \- between them, they really weren’t. And anybody who tried to tell her differently was selling something she didn’t want.

* * *

The feeling was back.

It was hard to describe; she’d never tried, either. She didn’t think anyone would understand it. The way there was this shiver under her skin. Like she should be doing something, but she didn’t know what. That something was going to happen, even if she knew she was safe. 

She was in her bedroom, it was late enough for her to think seriously about going to bed, and all she could focus on was this restlessness inside her that wouldn’t quit. 

_It gets better._

Allie looked at her backpack. The note was still in there. 

But he didn’t mean the words, did he? He didn’t. They weren’t alike, him and her. They weren’t. He had everything going for him, everything he could ever want, and she was the social outcast nobody could stand. 

They, in any capacity, weren’t meant to work. 

She didn’t really think about it as she retrieved the paper from her bag. She actively refused to think anything on it as she unfolded it, and hunted through the messy folds of her comforter and sheets for her phone that she’d dropped there. 

It took her a good ten minutes to type in his number. It took another eight and a half for her to halting enter, **It’s Allie.**

Twenty minutes later she hit send and immediately felt like an idiot. 

After thirty seconds her phone rang, and Danny’s number lit up the screen.


End file.
